If there are no other options, Dish will buy Tivo, but not for much cash as many think. Tivo desperately needs the new Echostar to buy it, and it can be had by means of financial legerdemain involving stocks, seats on the Echostar board, and other tricks turning the Tivo brass into new Echostar millionaires--albeit on paper, for a while until the get to sell some of it, Echostar having a much stronger future--and the bare minimum of cash to provide just enough for control, or even less cash with Echostar paying a pittance as an investor or what they call buying a "stake" in the company without buying the whole company for control, and Tivo would love the infusion of cash and a partnership with a company with the reach of Echostar trying to enter and attract the same market as Tivo (the new terrestrial Echostar boxes). Echostar/Dish will not get "slammed." But if Charlie sees the end of the road, he will take the less expensive option of kiss and make up with Tivo.